Small Scale Military Headquarters

The 1/144 New Millennium tanks have finally reached Wal Mart in northwest Louisiana. I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. Not as detailed as Dragon, but still, at $2.00, well worth it. Good variety of tanks also. I bought 4 Shermans and a Tiger I. Since Dragon doesn't produce any Shermans in this scale, and Takara Shermans are $8.00 and up, this is a welcome addition, esp. for those of us who use this scale for dioramas and wargames.

but no where near as nice as newer Takara or CanDo releases.

That is correct. Dragon and Takara are more detailed, but the New Millennium tanks fit in well with both Dragon and Takara, esp. for diorama purposes. The Takara Shermans are selling for $14.99 each at The Panzer Place! The Tiger I's are $6.99 each. Dragon's Tigers are $4.00 and up. If you are looking strictly for a "display" model, then the New Millennium tanks are not for you. However, because these are so inexpensive, $1.97, they can be used and abused as burned out and blown up armour, along with fitting in well with convoys, etc.

Philip wrote:That is correct. Dragon and Takara are more detailed, but the New Millennium tanks fit in well with both Dragon and Takara, esp. for diorama purposes. The Takara Shermans are selling for $14.99 each at The Panzer Place! The Tiger I's are $6.99 each. Dragon's Tigers are $4.00 and up. If you are looking strictly for a "display" model, then the New Millennium tanks are not for you. However, because these are so inexpensive, $1.97, they can be used and abused as burned out and blown up armour, along with fitting in well with convoys, etc.

True!

If you want damaged tanks you can buy them that way, new, from New Millenium, too. I don't know how their skinny little guns bend and break off inside the cases but they manage to. BTW: they only cost $1.79 in North Carolina. You must live in a fancier part of town.
My favorite though is the PzIV-H. If these had come out in 2002 or earlier I'd have been ecstatic, now I'm spoiled and picky.

That is a good point. I too am spoiled with the Dragon and Takara models. My main interest was that New Millennium was offering some Shermans. I purchased 8 for ca. $16.00. At this time, Dragon doesn't produce WWII Allied armour. When I purchased the Takara Shermans I paid an average of $8.00 per tank. Do the math, $64.00 as opposed to $16.00. I must say that the N.M. Shermans are pretty nice. I'm having to use a magnifying glass to see the difference, so I'm pleased with the Shermans. Nice to have some Allied armour. The great thing about these being at Wal Mart is that I can slip them in with the milk and bread, thus bypassing my financial advisor(wife). By the time she discovers this, and she always does, I'm in tank heaven! Nevertheless, my main interest is still 1/72

And I am sure everyone here on the forum is taken aback at such behavior.
Tank heaven, eh?
((~8

I wonder what other ingenius ways we have to trick and slip our model behavior into the house. An interesting topic, there.

Saw them for the first time today. My question is, at such a small size, how can one brand be so much more detailed than another brand? They looked awfully hard to beat for 2 bucks.

hot: have you actually compared? There is a huge difference in detail between brands, even at this scale. 1/285 has excellent detail and significant differences between manufacturers, so 144 has even more room for difference....

Comparisons aside, you can't beat the detail (especially on the Sherman, it's almost an exact duplicate of the 21C 1/18 Sherman) for $1.79. By all means, feel free to pay 3+ times the price for twice the detail. I'm sure not gonna.

I'd say twice the price. How does one multiply detail anyway? Many 1/285 though have better detail than the New Milleniums do.

Twice the price? Okay. Nonetheless, for my purposes, the NM tanks are more than sufficient. The rest of my scale habits put enough of a strain on my budget to consider paying $4 or $5 for an inch long tank.

Never done a comparison because I've never seen a Dragon model in 1/144. I'm probably like the typical person who doesn't collect 1/144. You put the two next to each other two or three feet from the observer and they are going to say "I don't see any difference in the two". Of course, an afficianado is not going to say that. If you collect a certain brand, you are going to be prejudiced towards that brand also. Just human nature.

Philip wrote:. The great thing about these being at Wal Mart is that I can slip them in with the milk and bread, thus bypassing my financial advisor(wife). By the time she discovers this, and she always does, I'm in tank heaven!

I tried the same thing. And the Wife always finds out

Its not the length of the tank but the tanks you get at length....

Hi all,

Just picked up 2 repaints of these 1/44 tanks at Kaybee Toys in Mass. The M18 features a slightly different shade of green paint & the star markings are in different locations along with some call numbers on the side. The Sherman is a lot cooler with the COED on the side & a nice tan & green stripe camo effect.

I did not get any of the German armor on the first batch, but I am guessing that these are also repaints.

Here are a couple of pix. The new models are in the front.

Here are the m18s

Nice - I always like when A) stuff shows up out of the blue - keeps you on your toes, and B) stuff shows up at stores other than WM. I would love for KB to become a 21st outlet.

Btw, welcome aboard and thanks for the recon!
Oh, and how much were they?

Hey digger,

Been lurking the boards for a couple of years, but not much of a "poster"

Anyhow, they were $1.99.

Hi BD99,

I don't know if you are familiar with KayBee Toys, but they are a regional toy store (like a small Toys R Us). They are not a hobby shop. So, yes, they are the manufacture's repaints.

The COED model was also done in 1/32 scale by 21st Century Toys, so it appears that they are scaling down their own repaints.

I did not buy any of the German tanks in the original paint scheme, so I cannot compare the differences. However, I believe the German armor in the orginal release were basically 1 color scheme. This new release definately had at least 1 of those tanks in a camo scheme.

Hey BD, I just realized that you are in the UK, so I guess you would not know what kind of store KayBee is

repaint these yourself. I have repainted several including Can Do and WTM-Takara with results as good as I can paint. I use acrylics. They don't wash out the detail and I have Can Do PzIV-Ds and PzIII-Gs & Fs in desert camo. Winter whitewash is a bit more difficult to get right, but the Germans found that true with the real ones, didn't they? The small tools, etc. are hard to do with a shaky hand and comparatively wide brush though....

Well I just got back from Kaybee again, so here is the deal on the German tanks....

The Panzer is tan with a darker shade airbrushed on the skirts.

The Panther, Tiger, & KingTiger all have a 3 color camo (tan, brown & green). 2 of these also sported small tan dots as part of the camo.

I know there are proper names for these paint schemes, but I just don't know enough about the German armor

The dots should be both light and dark, representing the dappling of light through foliage and that particular scheme is called 'ambush'. The tan should really be a dark yellow and was the base color for German armor after 1942. The green and brown are dark green and dark red and acted as the 'mottling' colors on the dark yellow base. Sometimes singly, sometimes in tandem.

ltcbj wrote:The dots should be both light and dark, representing the dappling of light through foliage and that particular scheme is called 'ambush'. The tan should really be a dark yellow and was the base color for German armor after 1942. The green and brown are dark green and dark red and acted as the 'mottling' colors on the dark yellow base. Sometimes singly, sometimes in tandem.

Thanks, Itcbj. The colors you gave are more accurate than my description.